Final answer:
Previous responses to planned nursing interventions for symptom management indicate the nurse's use of experience as a critical thinking skill, as it shows integration of past knowledge into current care plans.
Step-by-step explanation:
When evaluating a terminally ill patient's outcomes, and specifically looking at how the nurse's use of experience as a critical thinking skill is evident, the best indicator is d. Previous responses to planned nursing interventions for symptom management. This option reflects the nurse's ability to recall and integrate past learnings from similar patient situations into the current care plan, which is a hallmark of experiential learning. Nurses draw on their past experiences to anticipate how this patient might respond to various interventions based on similarities in symptoms, responses, or circumstances.
The other options such as a. Clinical symptoms of an improved level of comfort, b. Perseverance in seeking successful comfort measures, and c. Characteristics of the resolution of grief in the patient are also vital outcomes but they do not directly indicate the nurse's application of past experience as a critical thinking skill. These are more reflective of direct observations and emotional support aspects of nursing care.